The life and career of Michael “Air” Jordan

Michael Jordan is the most decorated basketball player to ever play in the NBA. He is also a businessman, film star, and club owner. There aren’t many who would disagree with us saying that Michael Jordan is one of the all time basketball greats.

Jordan was one of the first players to make as much money off the court as he did on it. His name has become synonymous with the concept of brand deals and celebrity collaborations. This is thanks in part to his incredibly successful Nike Air collaboration which is reported to next the company $1 billion dollars a year.

In this article, we are going to look at the life and career so far of Michael Jordan. From the college days, through the Space Jam Era and onto the present day.

 

The College Years

As you would probably expect with a player of Jordan’s talents, they were evident from an early age and he was breaking records even in college. In high school, he excelled at football, basketball, and baseball.

Jordan played for the North Carolina Tar Heels. As a freshman, he earned a place in the USA national team, ACC Freshman of the Year, and he scored the winning points in the 1982 NCAA Championship game against Georgetown.

He was called up to the NCAA All-American First Team in both his sophomore and junior seasons. He graduated a year early to join the 1984 draft and was named in the ACC 50th anniversary team.

The NBA Years

When looking at a player’s legacy we would usually look at their achievements one by one and talk about how they came about. However, we’d need a pretty thick book to do that. So, here are Michael Jordan’s NBA achievements (the condensed version):

Jordan won the NBA championships 6 times and each year he won he was named the NBA Finals MVP. He was also named the overall NBA MVP 5 times. He was a 14-time NBA All-Star and was named All-Star MVP 3 times.

He was named on the NBA’s first team 10 times. He was named Rookie of the Year in 1985 and captained the All-Rookie team. He was named on the NBA All-Defensive First Team 9 times. In 1998, he was named Defensive Player of the Year.

He was the NBA scoring champion 10 times, the steals leader 3 times, and he won the Slam Dunk contest twice.

Jordan played for the Chicago Bulls between 1984–1993 and 1995–1998. He took a year out in between to play baseball professionally. After retiring for the second time in 1999, he returned to the NBA and played for the Washington Wizards for two years.

During his nearly 20 years in the NBA, Jordan became not only one of the biggest names in basketball but one of the biggest sporting stars in the world. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame twice, once for his NBA career and once for his Olympic career.

Do you think anyone will come close to achieving what Jordan has – check out NBA player futures odds here.

Life Outside The NBA

It is a very rare occasion when we struggle to find space to talk about an athlete being a two-time Olympic gold medalist. But Jordan has had such an impressive career that we can only spare the achievement a few lines. Jordan led Team USA to gold in 1984 and 1992. He wasn’t allowed to play in the 1988 Olympics due to their amateur athletes’ rule. The team also won a gold medal at the Pan American Games and the Tournament of America.

In 1996, Jordan starred in the iconic film Space Jam. In the film, he plays himself surrounded by other basketball players and Looney Tunes characters. The film went on to inspire the next generation of sports fashion and basketball players. The film has recently had a sequel with LeBron James as the star.

Jordan is perhaps most famous for his line of shoes with Nike – Air Jordans. They were named after his NBA nickname. The shoes first went on sale in 1992 and new ranges are still released every year. It is said that Nike makes over $1 billion dollars a year from this deal.